Diversity, Inclusion,
& Belonging (DIBs)

Highwire’s DIBs Council is committed to fostering an inclusive values-driven agency and workplace culture, where everyone can feel
safe, seen, valued and heard.
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Getting into good trouble:
The DIBs Council

We leverage our diverse perspectives and experiences to create impactful work and advance our DIBs mission. Every Highwire Walker is empowered to become a stronger ally and equity advocate.

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Holding ourselves accountable

DIBs is integral to Highwire’s DNA. Every Highwire Walker contributes to our shared DIBs goals, including diversity recruitment and retention, and through our employee-led affinity groups and DIBs Council.
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Creating partnerships that matter

Beyond our agency walls, we collaborate with community partners to extend our impact, engagement and allyship with historically underserved populations. Including through volunteer work with organizations closing the digital divide in Black/Brown communities.

Highwire for everyone

We take action to give Highwire Walkers the tools to thrive in their careers. Every Highwire Walker is encouraged to participate in our robust mentorship program and our growing affinity groups. We aim to create safe spaces for people to come together around culture, community and career development. DIBs work is about progress, not perfection. 

We amplify the historically underrepresented voices in our industry, from artists to inspiring leaders. We work to make sure everyone—regardless of age, race/ethnicity, size, shape, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion and disabilities–feels safe, celebrated and worthy.

Highwire for everyone - March 2023

Industry collaborators

We pay homage to the time-honored heritage milestones, observances and cultural moments that are meaningful to our colleagues. Over the years, we have partnered with a powerful array of industry peers, media experts, artists, academics and more to elevate our collective learning and unlearning.

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Digital at Highwire

Highwire’s digital team consists of expert communicators who leverage a deep understanding of clients’ businesses and markets to develop audience-first integrated campaigns that deliver.

Highwire's DIBs impact report

During this moment in time when the value of diversity, inclusion and belonging initiatives are being hotly debated, we are thrilled to shine a light on our DIBs journey as Diversity Action Alliance (DAA) agency signatories. In our inaugural report, we chronicle how DIBs came to life across the Highwire ecosystem —making an expat with employees, clients, industry peers, clients, community partners, and beyond. It includes benchmarks that motivated the team, along with insights and a sampling of resources that empowered Highwire to take meaningful steps toward creating a more inclusive industry.

Read the report to learn more about Highwire’s approach to the hiring and retention of BIPOC talent, the genesis of its five employee-led affinity groups, its approach to DEIB client communications, and the importance of inclusive language in the workplace.

Download today

Affinity groups

We’re stronger together. Join one of our employee-led affinity groups when you join our team. At Highwire, our affinity groups have been instrumental in identifying issues that warrant deeper and more thoughtful action and engagement with the agency at large and our stakeholders. Our current groups are featured below, and we have plans to expand this network.

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Más Sabor

The purpose of Mas Sabor is to unite and uplift the Highwire Latine community to promote progress, raise cultural awareness, attract and retain talent, and foster personal and professional growth.

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BIPOC Collective

The BIPOC Collective aims to foster community, leadership growth, personal development, and promote fearless conversations. We do this through dedicated trainings, leadership development, and by creating a space where marginalized communities feel valued and heard.

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Have Several Seats

Our mission for Have Several Seats is to empower Black women in our agency by fostering an inclusive and safe space, providing mentorship, professional development, and networking opportunities for personal and career growth. We will also leverage this forum as a place for identifying agency/industry-facing learning and allyship opportunities connected to the unique needs and lived experiences of Black women in the workplace.

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For the Culture

The purpose of For The Culture is to maintain a safe space for Black Highwire Walkers and unpacking external events/issues that impact our community. We deliberately and unapologetically take time to center and celebrate Black joy, culture and career achievements. 

 

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Here & Queer

Here & Queer exists to challenge binaries, expand perspectives and create a safe space to explore our identities. The heart of Here & Queer is to raise awareness of issues impacting the community, partner with leadership to achieve equality and inclusion, and celebrate queer joy and achievements. 

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  • Playing Pride Kahoot

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Innovation + Initiatives

Guided by our agency value, #GrowthMindset, we are always looking for ways that we can level-up. Here are some examples of how we are bringing some fresh thinking and a growth mindset to the DIBs ecosystem at Highwire. 

DIBs media perspective

Drawing on inclusion and belonging best practices gleaned from working across global organizations such as CNN, Burson-Marsteller & Dentsu International, EVP Danny Maiello designed & launched a new learning platform for our agency: The DIBs Media Roundtable.

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Every quarter, Danny welcomes multicultural communications experts, journalists, producers, columnists, podcasters and others who have their finger on the pulse of key issues and trends in media for a thoughtfully moderated conversation. Guests are always quite forthcoming about most relevant aspects of their respective roles as well as their dimensions of diversity and how that informs the way that they show up in the workplace; the content consistently provides valuable perspective for both HW clients and for our counselors across the agency.

Inclusive language resources

Guided by our agency value, #GrowthMindset, we are always looking for ways that we can level-up. Here are some examples of how we are bringing some fresh thinking and a growth mindset to the DIBs ecosystem at Highwire. 

We launched our internal inclusive language resource, Liberation Language Guide in 2021, and it has been a game-changer. Highwire walkers have found this tool to be invaluable–and, on certain occasions–a timely resource for some of our partners (clients, reporters) who may not be as far along in their inclusive language journey.

Download the latest client-version of our Liberation Language Guide
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MENA Matters

Following an eye-opening all agency conversation in 2022 about the erasure of U.S. residents who identify as Middle Eastern and North Africa (MENA) from the reporting category of the census, the people and DIBs teams collaborated in the spirit of our agency value, #InclusionAlways. 

To ensure that every Highwire Walker felt that they could authentically self-designate their ethnic backgrounds, we added the MENA category to the self-reporting demographic section of our workforce management system. This has made a huge difference to our employees who identify as MENA, and we hope to encourage other industry peers to consider expanding their demographic categories to better reflect our increasingly diverse storytellers and creatives.

     

 

 

Implicit Bias Training

As part of our DIBs culture at Highwire, we have hosted conversations and training sessions on the impact of microaggressions and implicit bias. Since 2021, we have also adopted the “calling in” framework designed to connect the dots between intention and impact. 

In 2024, we collaborated with Inclusive Design Group (IDG) to hold an agency-wide training on implicit bias that went beyond theory and allowed us to…wait for it…PRACTICE! Thanks to their unique experiential approach, we gained real-world experience interrupting bias, leaning into our discomfort, deepening our understanding of bias vs. oppression and much more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our DIBs leaders

Reach out to any of our DIBs leaders to learn more about our work. 

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Ayanna Anderson

SVP, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging
Jazmin Eusebio

Jazmin Eusebio

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Program Manager
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Carol Carrubba

Chief Strategy Officer, DIBs Council Advisor
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Emily Call Borders

Chief Client Officer, DIBs Council Advisor
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Kathleen Gratehouse

Chief Executive Officer, DIBs Program Advisor

Awards and commitments

We are proud of how our agency has leaned in to do more – more listening, learning and creating programs that have an impact far beyond our agency walls. We’ve been making strides and our industry peers have taken notice.

Diversiry Action Alliance
Ayanna-Anderson-PRWeek-SE&A-Champion
PRSA Best DEI Progress
Jaz-Eusebio-Ad-Color-Rising-Star
Bulldogs COOP Award

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